From social relationships to your professional demeanor, emotional intelligence impacts nearly every aspect of your life and can be vital to your success. It helps you better understand yourself and your emotions, empathize with those around you and respond to situations appropriately.

Emotional intelligence can be broken down into three categories: using emotions, understanding and perceiving emotions and managing emotions. Each category is equally important in how you go about your day and ultimately, your long-term success.

By identifying your strengths and weaknesses, and working on the areas that need improvement, you’ll find yourself becoming more emotionally aware. When facing a problem or task, ask yourself: “Is this thinking helping me solve a problem or is it making me feel less confident?” If you find it’s knocking your confidence, pull out a pen and paper and formulate a plan to squash the negative thinking.

Check out Net Credit’s infographic below to find out where you stand on the emotional intelligence scale.